HAMLET — A recreational football game came to a halt Monday evening after gunfire erupted near a municipal park.
Children were in the midst of a game at South Hamlet Park around 6:30 p.m. when the shots rang out.
According to Hamlet Police Chief Dennis Brown, the shots were fired by 53-year-old Spencer Roosevelt Dowd of Southern Pines.
Dowd reportedly fired several shots into the air in a domestic incident and no injuries were reported.
Detectives responded to the scene and, after canvassing the area, identified Dowd as the shooter.
Dowd was arrested and charged with discharge of firearms or other weapons, going armed to the terror of the people and possession of a firearm by a felon. Records show he was booked into the Richmond County Jail at 9:43 p.m. where he remained at 2 p.m. Tuesday under a $100,000 secured bond.
Brown said detectives were executing a search warrant related to the case on Tuesday.
“I’m grateful officers responded quickly and, within an hour, made an arrest,” Brown said, adding that he was also “grateful no one got hurt.”
Several parents and grandparents posted about the incident on social media Monday evening.
Mayor Bill Bayless confirmed Tuesday afternoon that the remaining games have been moved to Memorial Park. According to the Parks and Recreation schedule on the city’s website, the season ends in mid-December.
Records with the N.C. Department of Public Safety Division of Adult Correction show Dowd has a history of violence.
In 1993, Dowd was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, discharging a firearm into an occupied property and trespassing. The following year, he was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury for an incident that occured three months prior to the aforementioned conviction.
For those crimes, Dowd spent more than a decade behind bars, serving three consecutive sentences from 1993 to 2004.
Fourteen months after his release from prison, Dowd was convicted of assault on a female and received probation.
However, Dowd was convicted in 2015 of common law robbery and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, and in 2018 of possession of a firearm by a felon. The possession charged was filed two months following his release on the previous conviction.
Records show Dowd was released from prison June 16, 2020 and his parole ended March 13 of this year.
All but one of Dowd’s convictions have been in Moore County, records show.
Dowd’s first conviction was in Macon County — on felony count of breaking and entering and larceny — in 1986.
All defendants facing criminal charges are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
